People Told Amber Heard She Was ‘Throwing Away’ Her Career After She Came Out

As expected, Amber Heard‘s experience with coming out in Hollywood went less than smooth. In an interview with Allure, the 31-year-old actress opened up about her sexuality and the homophobia she experienced after she went public with her attraction to women.

In the interview, Heard recalled her “coming out” moment in Hollywood. It was a few years ago when she was photographed holding hands with a woman who she was dating at the time. “I [was] holding her hand, and I realized that I have two options,” Heard said. “I can let go of her hand and, when asked about it, I can say that my private life is my private life. Or I could not let go and own it.”

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And though Heard fully accepted how her life and career would change after coming out, her professional team wasn’t convinced that the milestone was a right move for her public image. Considering her history of playing love interests for actors like Nicolas Cage and Johnny Depp, Heard’s management warned that coming out would have long-lasting repercussions for her career.

“Everyone said, ‘You’re throwing it all away. You can’t do this to your career,'” Heard said. “And I said, ‘I cannot do this any other way. Watch me.’ ”

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To this day, Heard doesn’t identify with the term “coming out.” Instead, she believes that labels, such as bisexual, should be nixed. As much as she feels a part of the LGBTQ community, Heard doesn’t connect with words associated with the acronym and believes that people should skip categorizations and simply identify as “human.”

“I didn’t come out. I was never in. It’s limiting, that LGBTQ thing,” Heard said. “It served a function as an umbrella for marginalized people to whom rights were being denied, but it loses its efficacy because of the nuanced nature of humanity. As we become more educated and expand the facts of our nature, we keep adding letters. It was a great shield, but now we’re stuck behind it. It’s so important to resist labels. I don’t care how many letters you add. At some point, it’s going to spell ‘WE ARE HUMAN.’ ”

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Heard may star in two anticipated D.C. superhero movies, “Justice League” and “Aquaman,” but it seems like she’s doing most of her hero work IRL. Props to her for keeping it real.